The problems associated with parking vehicles accurately in parking bays having restricted lengths has long been recognised. Thus, in a parking bay having a wall at a far end thereof, a motorist is obliged to park his vehicle sufficiently close to the wall such that the rear end of his vehicle does not protrude beyond the opposite end of the parking space. At the same time, there exists the danger that as the motorist approaches the end wall, he may misjudge the distance between the front bumper of his vehicle and the end wall, with the consequent risk that he will actually drive his vehicle against the end wall, with obvious results. This problem is particularly acute when the parking bay is closed in as, for example, when constituted by a garage and is further exacerbated when the front end of the vehicle is long, which increases the difficulty of judging the distance from the front bumper to the end wall of the garage.
One known solution to the above problem is to provide a ramp inside the parking bay and displaced from the end wall by a pre-calibrated distance, such that when the front wheels of the motor vehicle meet the ramp, the front bumper of the motor vehicle is satisfactorily positioned with respect to the end wall. There are several drawbacks to such an arrangement. First, the position of the ramp has to be calibrated according to the distance of the front wheels of the motor vehicle from the front bumper and, consequently, a ramp which is suitable for one vehicle is not suitable for a different vehicle. Furthermore, the motorist is obliged to drive forward into the parking bay, requiring that he reverse out therefrom, even though it is often desirable to reverse into the parking bay. This limitation derives from the fact that the distance of the front wheels from the front bumper is usually different from the distance of the rear wheels from the rear bumper.
Such an arrangement also requires that where two vehicles are parked in a double width garage, two separate ramps have to be provided, one for each vehicle, and the two vehicles are obliged always to occupy their own spaces. This applies equally when two vehicles are parked in a double length garage, one behind the other, where the drawback is even more significant since, in these circumstances, the rear vehicle is obliged to await the arrival of the forward vehicle, which is by no means always convenient.
Another proposed solution is to suspend a ping-pong ball from a string in the roof of the garage, at a suitable height and distance from the end wall, such that when the ping-pong ball strikes the windshield of the motor vehicle, this serves as an indication to the motorist to stop. However, such an arrangement suffers from all the drawbacks described above with relation to the use of a ramp plus the additional drawback that the parking bay must be provided with a roof, which renders such a proposal suitable for use with garages only.
Yet another proposal has been to affix buffers to the end wall of the parking bay at the same height as the vehicle's front bumper and this again may require that the buffer be calibrated from one vehicle to another. This drawback, in itself, is not so serious so far as motor cars are concerned, since the front buffers of most motor cars are substantially at the same height. However, the provision of buffers in such manner also reduces the effective length of the parking bay, which can sometimes be critical when space is at a premium and, more serious, since the motorist only receives an indication to stop the vehicle when he has actually driven it into the buffer, there exists the inevitable danger that he will drive into the buffer at too great a speed, with obvious results.